working with Agencies

Absolutely. This is something that is problematic for most serviced apartment providers. Generally I suggest creating a set of "commissionable rates" that you set and distribute to all of the agencies. Then start with a set commission level and increase commission based on the success of the agents for you. When you have the commissionable rates you can just maintain them and redistribute them to the agents. 

In addition you can then email round all agents if you are doing a better deal for a period of time (lower rates or higher commissions) based on when they book.

Finally a lot of the providers I have dealt with work on a rate for stays of 6 days or less, then a rate for stays of 28 days or less then a rate of 90 days of less then others. At cityQuarters we discount each drop by about 5-10% from our daily rate.

Hope that helps.

Kind regards

Giles